Considering change to Heal skill to improve nonmagical healing

[Mynameisjake]

Does anyone see any serious game balance issues to changing the "Treat Deadly Wounds" section of the Heal skill from:

Quote:

Treat Deadly Wounds: When treating deadly wounds,

you can restore hit points to a damaged creature.
Treating deadly wounds restores 1 hit point per level of
the creature. If you exceed the DC by 5 or more, add your
Wisdom modifier (if positive) to this amount. A creature
can only benefit from its deadly wounds being treated
within 24 hours of being injured and never more than
once per day. You must expend two uses from a healer’s
kit to perform this task. You take a –2 penalty on your
Heal skill check for each use from the healer’s kit that
you lack.

To:

Quote:

Treat Deadly Wounds: When treating deadly wounds,

you can restore hit points to a damaged creature.
Treating deadly wounds restores 1 hit point per each point
the skill roll exceeds a DC of 20. A creature
can only benefit from its deadly wounds being treated
within 24 hours of being injured and never more than
once per day. You must expend two uses from a healer’s
kit to perform this task. You take a –2 penalty on your
Heal skill check for each use from the healer’s kit that
you lack.

I'm considering three different ways to introduce the change.

1. Just change the skill.
2. Require a feat called "Surgeon" which allows the character to use the new rules.
3. Require a feat called "Surgeon" which allows the character to use the new rules, but has a prerequisite of Skill Focus: Heal.

The Surgeon feat would read:

Quote:

Taking this feat allows the character to use the modified rules for "Treating Deadly Wounds." A Surgeon who attempts to use the Heal skill on him or her self takes a -5 penalty to the roll.

Any thoughts?

[Morgen]

While I'm sure your changes are not breaking anything in the game, I'm not sure if they're actually improving anything. DC 20 for level+maybe wisdom mod versus DC 20+ is healing might not be too much of a difference or might even lower things later on.

Some more down time would probably improve the heal skill a lot more. Give people more of a chance to use things like the long term rest option for double level healing.

[KenderKin]

We used to let a heal check have bonuses and additional effects if and only if....It was applied the round after the damage took place.

We let non-magical healing restore 1d2 hit points (+1hp/skill point in heal) points of damage....But only the round after the damage took place...........also let them delay making a fort save for rounds = to skill in heal. as long a character with heal attended to them......